Success In Mind; Not Wealth…

The definition of success according to Merriam Webster’s English Language Learners is:

the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame

the correct or desired result of an attempt

Most of my life, when someone mentioned the word “Success” I also gravitated to the the first bullet (wealth, respect and/or fame) and because of that, I sought out in life to achieve and to do just that. When my attempts at stardom failed; it was then that I felt like a failure for not obtaining success “as I knew it to be” – I was blinded by what success really was and later realized that success had nothing to do with wealth, respect or fame; I mean don’t get me wrong, a part of success is known to be wealth and fame but if you don’t have the mindset to achieve the basics, you’ll never get to the other side of it.

The world we live in now, deems success as such things above and puts many stipulations on the word. Such as, if you haven’t achieved a certain goal or aspiration by a certain time frame or age in your life, then according to the worlds term of success, you would be deemed as unsuccessful. You might as well give up, close up shop to your dream and goals and wait to die. Sounds dreadful; and it will be, if we base our success definitions off of other peoples perceptions.

You see? True success starts within your mind. A lot of times in life we get mixed up by what success truly is because we focus our attention on other people, their status, their way of living, their wealth, their life and etc. and try to match and/or adjust our life to be set up just like their world is. I’ve been there and done that…

When I first starting blogging two years ago, I visited quite a few blogs during that time. Some had really cool site tags, but what really got me was how many people were following them. I was overcome by the comments they were receiving from their writing styles and topics and it was then that I became discouraged about my own blog. I began to think to myself – “Okay, maybe I need to do this or say that.” or “Maybe I need to change my Blog to look like theirs.” From that point, I found myself going through many different realms and circles just to get engagement, but failed miserably to get the responses that I felt were making them successful. Suddenly, I began to ask myself “Are my topics not interesting enough?, “What is it that they’re doing, that I’m not doing?” and the questions and comparisons went on and on and on. I literally made myself sick and depressed thinking about it. What I was trying to do was compare other bloggers success to what my blog should look like in order to get to the success and the level that they had achieved. “As Julia Roberts said it best in “Pretty Woman”….

What I had to realize was that their success was not my success and not only that – in order to get that type of following, they had to have been blogging for a couple of years or more. At the time I was just starting out and was already looking to shoot to the stars off of one blog post, trust me I think it’s silly when I think back on it now.

What I came to the conclusion of is that everyone has their own audience and while they had built up theirs through hard work and consistency. I had to realize that, that would be the same road that I would need to take as well. Was I doing this to get likes and follows? Or was this something that God had really birthed in my heart and spirit to do, because if it’s of God – we have to trust and believe that he has success worked out for us in his own time, including followers. But, if we’re into ourselves, then we’ll forever chase a rabbit that we’ll never catch.

Listed below are a couple of Success tips that I learned along the way, that might help you, no matter where you are now on your journey.

1.Wealth is not Wealth if you don’t have a Successful Mind to handle it.

Okay, so I’ve always been bad when it comes to money. I never really had anyone to teach me about wealth growing up and the benefits it can add to your life. If you want to have money and keep money, you first have to have a successful mindset towards it. As a people, when we advance in life whether this is from a job or other advancement; we tend to increase our life and possessions as well. We’ll go from a job making 25,000 a year to making 35,000 a year and still be broke. We’ll go out and get a new car with higher payments and take on more expenses in which will make us sink deeper into debt, then we’ll find ourselves asking God for a better job to pay off the debt “we” incurred. The new increase is not meant to increase our lifestyle but help us to save and make it easier to pay for the things and/or bills we are already facing, not to add to it. What we have to do is keep the same mindset we had when we were making 25,000. You might even want to pretend as if you got a 5000.00 increase instead of a 10,000 increase. I’m a firm believer, if you can’t handle what you have now, then you won’t be able to handle the million you’re praying for.

2. Stop with the Comparison

As stated above, I had it bad comparing myself to other’s. When it comes to success you have to realize that everyone is on a different level. Their success is not going to look like your success and vice versa. When you have a product or a service to offer to people, don’t get side-tracked because someone else’s products or services is doing better than yours. You can’t focus on what they are doing, you have to stay consistent with what you are doing in the space and time that’s given to you. Most people are grinding everyday and putting themselves in uncomfortable spaces in order to push their product because they believe in it. We don’t know the effort that anyone is doing behind the scenes that make it look effortless in plain view. Success is obtained through your hard work and consistency. What are you willing to do or how far are you willing to go to push yours?

3. Create your own Path

A minister told me when I was 18, she said “I tell my children all the time; create your own Path, Let people follow you instead of you following them” – I didn’t understand her words of wisdom at that time because my focus was always shifted on following someone else in whom I thought was much cooler, popular or better than me. It wasn’t until I hit 30, that the light bulb went off in my head. I was so busy following others until when I looked down at my own feet, I didn’t have a path of my own to follow. It was then that I immediately began creating my own path of self-assurance and success and while I am still adding to that path daily, it feels good to be the leader of my own destination and not someone elses.

4. It’s Never Too Late

I used to tell people, “It’s Never too Late to Do Anything you want to Do; It becomes too Late when they are rolling you into a church.” I say the same thing to you today, Don’t get sidelined because the career you always dreamed of didn’t happen in your 20’s and you’re now 40. Success doesn’t have a start date nor an end date to when it should happen and when it should stop. As long as you’re living, breathing and have the activity of your limbs; you’re capable of accomplishing anything you want. If it doesn’t happen, it won’t be because it wasn’t available – It’ll be because you didn’t allow it too.

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3 thoughts on “Success In Mind; Not Wealth…”

Wow, thank you for this wonderful post! Everything about it spoke to me! From how to manage money to finding your own path, it’s as though this was written just for me. I’ve spent so much time trying to follow the paths of others, trying to mirror their success and I just couldn’t seem to find the satisfaction that I was looking for. Here I am at 30 years old and I’ve finally made the decision to do away with all of that and consult God about what I should be doing. Thank you for sharing!

Tausha C. – Your comment today, just put wind in my spirit. I pray before I write a post and my hopes are that they will indeed touch someone else. I’ve been through a lot and try to share those experiences with others. I can totally relate about consulting God about our own path and not others. Cheers to you taking control of your own life, you only get one. Rock it, Enjoy It, Embrace It and Love It. Because no one will do that no better than YOU! Much Love and I appreciate you for reading and stopping by. Until next time, xoxo